Mr. Goodman had a long and varied professional carrier of over sixty years, starting with acting appearances at the Pasadena Playhouse and on many of the NBC-CBS radio shows of the early 1940’s. These were followed by stints as film and theatre critic for the Hollywood Citizen News, tours with John Carradine in Shakespearean repertory in California, and summer theatre management and performance in New York in 1948-49. Mr. Goodman became director and leading actor of the Cirque Playhouse in Seattle in 1950. Later invited to Vancouver, British Columbia to play Macbeth, he also toured Canada with his own production of Hamlet in 1953, an engagement that he considered a highlight of his career.

Moving to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1955, Mr. Goodman taught drama at San Francisco State College, acted with the Actors Workshop, the American Conservatory Theatre, the Berkeley Repertory Company, and in many independent Equity and Equity waiver shows. In 1970, when the S.F. Community College District was formed, he helped to found the Community College Federation of Teachers, Local 2121, and served as its first full-time elected president for two terms. He was elected president of the Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle for two terms, and he was also president of the S.F. Council on Entertainment for two terms. He was a founder of the Bay Area Advisory Committee to Actors' Equity and served on this body for 10 years, five of them in the chair. In 1989 he was invited to serve on the Artistic Policy Committee of the San Francisco Archives of the Performing Arts.

In addition to his prominent acheivements in theatre, television and film, as well as awards too numerous to mention here, Mr. Dean’s literary acumen was well exhibited, starting from the early 1970’s, with the publishing of 12 paperback novels and short story collections, as well as two editions of a travel guide to Mexico, published under the pen name of Douglas Dean. As Douglas Dean Goodman he was the S.F. correspondent for Hollywood Drama-Logue between 1977-1980. Mr. Goodman's book San Francisco Stages: A Concise History, 1849-1986 was published in 1986. His last novel under the name of Douglas Dean, Prime Time, appeared on the stands in December 1988. Upon recovery from surgery for colon cancer and the prostate, in addition to a quadruple by-pass operation, by 1991 Mr. Dean was writing a weekly column for Drama-Logue, covering theatre, opera, ballet, and cabaret for the larger Bay Area. He wrote an occasional book review for the San Francisco Chronicle, and his autobiography, Maria, Marlene and Me was published in early 1994.

The 1973 article on Mulleian was a five-page feature story with photo’s highlighting the artist’s work, as well as public reaction to the artist, his lifestyle, and his military service in the Vietnam War. Included in the article was an interview with Ron Raz, discussing his relationship as lover and model of Mark Mulleian. The article was well received by both Mr. Goodman’s colleagues as well as the general public during that era. The last that Goodman and Mulleian had phone contact with each other was just before Mr. Goodman’s death, of cancer, in July of 2006.